Editorial: Opinions from around Florida

The Associated Press

Published Sunday, April 07, 2002

Here are excerpts from editorials in newspapers in Florida:

April 2

St. Petersburg Times, on airport security:

The nation's airports are safer since Sept. 11, but the government still has work to do. Passengers and bags aren't being adequately screened. There are jurisdictional problems to resolve between local police and the newly created federal security force. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta also announced the government will not meet its December deadline to outfit the airports with explosive detection machines. Congress and the public have expectations, and Mineta needs to meet them. Enacting these measures will improve security across the board and give a needed boost to the travel industry.

The government's new vigilance has bolstered the confidence of the flying public, but security still isn't adequate. Despite a federal takeover of airport security operations, screeners still make inexcusable mistakes, passengers still get weapons on board and the process for searching passengers and bags lacks order and consistency.

Improving the system requires more than money and federal control; it requires a new intolerance for underachievement, something for which the government is not always known.

April 2

The Miami Herald, on the state education code:

Florida lawmakers this week will sign off on a massive overhaul of the public-education system. However, they should resist adding meddlesome provisions to the voluminous education code being considered in the special session. Already, there are some components that could cause large, complex districts more headaches than they resolve, and they should be deleted from the bill.

The state is set to impose more-centralized control over grades K-12. One intrusive rule included in the overhaul would require that any third-grader who cannot meet standards set by the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests be held back to deter social promotions.

We believe that each district should have the flexibility to set its own standards locally and apply resources specifically to treat the causes of the need for social promotion.

The bill also could make it possible for districts to hire as school principals people with no training as education administrators.

Many districts across the country, in very public processes, have hired non-educators to run troubled school districts. Some have had success.

However, at the individual school level, there is the strong possibility that unqualified people -- with little public scrutiny and through a district's internal appointment process -- could be installed as principal.

Lawmakers must provide what they have so far been unable or unwilling to provide for an improved school system: adequate funding, ample resources, and structural flexibility.

April 2

The Gainesville Sun, on lobbyists and state commissions:

He may not have had the purest of motives, but a state senator's amendment to keep lobbyists from serving on a state commission that enforces election laws was still the right thing to do.

Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, made it his personal cause after the Florida Elections Commission lowered the boom on him last year. The commission fined him $311,000 for election-law violations during his 1999 campaign for the Senate, and Diaz de la Portilla vowed to strike back.

He did so in an amendment to an unrelated elections bill in the session's final hours. The amendment said that people who are registered as paid lobbyists before state government couldn't serve on the Elections Commission. Six of the nine current members are lobbyists

Anybody can see that it's a blatant conflict of interest for lobbyists to be sitting in judgment of elected officials they are trying to influence. The real potential for mischief is that lobbyists on the Elections Commission might be tempted to go easy on a lawmaker in return for favorable treatment.

Diaz de la Portilla may or may not be a bad guy, but he's on the right track with this amendment.

April 2

Orlando Sentinel, on the Middle East conflict:

The United States can play a stronger role in Mideast negotiations.

Amid almost daily suicide attacks and tanks rumbling through Bethlehem, hope of a settlement in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians seems more remote than ever. Yet there still are constructive diplomatic steps the United States can take to prod both sides toward peace.

It is regrettable but understandable that Israel responded forcefully to the latest wave of attacks, which killed 40 people in five days and wounded hundreds more. No country can be expected to endure such attacks indefinitely without going after the sponsors.

But the Bush administration has erred in not persuading Israel to show more restraint. Mr. Sharon's decision to "isolate" Mr. Arafat by confining him to a windowless room within his compound has made the Palestinian leader a hero among his people and an object of sympathy among other world leaders. It has reduced the chances from slim to none that he will take any steps against terrorism. And it has further inflamed the forces carrying out the attacks.

Now is no time for the United States to stand back and simply let the two sides fight it out.

The Middle East is the world's tinderbox. The conflict that rages between the Israelis and Palestinians undermines the stability of relatively moderate countries in the region, such as Egypt and Jordan. It emboldens hard-line states, such as Iran and Iraq. And it inspires terrorism around the world.